This article is adapted and condensed from Daniel J. Yoder, Ready Reasons: Essays on Christian Apologetics (Elnora, IN: Phroneō Publishing, 2024), 127-157.
Introduction
Moral relativism is the idea that ethical decisions are nothing more than expressions of personal preference. Any approach to morality that is based on self-interest can impact a person’s behavior in many ways, including in their treatment of other humans. “When persons are viewed as things, they begin to be treated as things.”[^1]
What is an unborn child? Is it appropriate to distinguish between humanness and personhood? What is a human? What makes someone a person? When does the unborn child acquire humanness and personhood? Those questions, which have significant ethical ramifications, are worthy of careful reflection.
Abortion-Rights Arguments
When thinking about whether or not an unborn child possesses personhood, the options are either that a child is a person at the moment of conception or that a child becomes a person at some later point. Abortion-rights advocates recognize, as their pro-life counterparts do also, that the critical question in the abortion debate is whether or not the unborn child is fully human. They realize that if the answer to this question is yes, then abortion is murder in nearly every situation, perhaps only excluding instances when the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother. Although abortion-rights promoters recognize that the unborn entity is human in that it technically belongs to the species known as homo sapiens, they also do not regard the unborn entity as a person.[^2] Four abortion-rights arguments will be briefly summarized here.
The “argument from decisive moments” is the view that there is some decisive moment in the child’s development in which personhood is achieved. At that time, all the rights that accompany personhood are acquired. This can take multiple forms. For example, the decisive moment might be placed at the time the conceptus is implanted in the mother’s womb, at the time when the child gains the appearance of humanness, at viability, at the beginning of brain functioning, or at the child’s birth.[^3]
The “argument from gradualism” is the view that “the unborn gradually gains more rights as it develops.”[^4] Because an adult is more developed than a fetus, it is thought to have more rights than a fetus. A fetus, in turn, has more rights than a zygote. There is an increase in moral rights as someone progresses through the physical process of human development.[^5] As Amanda Roth explains it, “The development of moral status is a gradual process that occurs continuously throughout gestation. That means that later fetuses have more status than earlier ones…”[^6]
The “argument from performance” assigns value to humans according to their ability to meet a set of conditions. Those who do not meet the qualifications are not worthy of dignity or respect. While the criteria can vary, the possibilities include “self-awareness, rationality, sentience, desirability, ethnicity, economic productivity, gender, nationality, native language, beauty, age, health, religion, race, ethnicity, fertility, birth, and national origin.”[^7] Presumably, if a human could gain the desired condition(s), they would then be valued as a person. If they eventually lose their qualifications, they would lose their personhood as well.
The “utilitarian argument” is promoted by the philosopher Peter Singer. This is the idea that, “If those around us stand to lose more than we stand to gain by our existence, then it’s better for us not to exist.”[^8] The logical conclusion of this view is infanticide (killing a child up to a year after birth). What matters most to Singer is not whether the child has a right to life but whether the parents would have an emotionally adverse reaction to killing their child.[^9] Importantly, Singer distinguishes between biological humanness and personhood. He makes personhood dependent on the acquisition of specific cognitive abilities.[^10] The implication of this is that when the intrinsic value of humans is lost, the individual human must acquire value in some other way.[^11]
The Commencement of Personhood
The commencement of personhood is rooted in theology, science, and ethics. Theologically, moral decisions about abortion hinge on the nature of a human fetus. To argue that the unborn is a “he” or “she,” John Stott appeals to Psalm 139. In that passage, the psalmist reflects on his prenatal existence. He expresses his belief that he is the handiwork of a divine potter. Furthermore, there is continuity in the psalmist’s life as he uses I to survey his past (including his pre-birth state), his present, and his future.[^12]
Although the Bible does not explicitly prohibit abortion, numerous passages provide indirect condemnation:
- Genesis 1:26-27 (human life is sacred due to its creation in the image of God)
- Exodus 21:22-25 (legal precedent supports the personhood of the unborn child)
- Leviticus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 12:31 (infanticide is condemned)
- Job 12:10 and Acts 17:25 (God is sovereign over life and death)
- Luke 1:41-44; 2:12-16 (the same Greek word is used to describe both an unborn child and a newborn infant)[^13]
A substantial theological issue is what it means for humans to be created in the image of God. As Sam Storms cautions against any attempt to limit personhood, he clarifies that a merely functional definition of the image of God is inadequate: “The image of God is as much a state as it is a capacity [. . .] The image is a given, not a goal to which the fetus moves in its physiological development.”[^14] The development of the fetus is not a progression from non-person to full-person. Instead, the fetus develops from full personhood to a more complete expression of personhood.[^15]
The image of God provides the foundation for human dignity because to be a human being is to be a particular type of substance. The principle of continuity throughout life seems virtually indisputable. It would be unacceptable for a criminal to claim that his identity has been altered over time and that, therefore, he is not responsible for a crime committed in the past. A person’s cells are replaced over time, but that does not make him a different person.[^16]
The Old Testament addresses the image of God in Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-3, and 9:6. Michael Heiser offers several observations about the image of God based on these passages. First, the image of God is gender-neutral. It applies to both males and females. Second, the image is assigned only to humans. This phrase puts humanity in a unique category.[^17]
Third, in an observation that particularly challenges the pro-abortion arguments addressed earlier, “There is no hint that humanity grows into the image, or develops the image. There is no ‘potential’ image of God. Whatever the image of God means, it is by definition inseparable from the human species.”[^18] Related to that is a fourth observation, which is that “Nothing suggests that the image has been or can be bestowed incrementally or partially. There is no ‘partial’ image.”[^19] Whatever the image of God is precisely, it is something that all humans share at all stages of their lives.
Scientifically, the most compelling explanation for when a human person becomes present is the genetic view of personhood (also known as the biological or structural view). “This is the view that when human life is present, there is a person with rights, one of which is the right to life.”[^20] In this understanding, biological considerations establish personhood. One such consideration is the species-specific DNA strands that are present at the moment of conception. Those strands indicate the humanness of the fertilized egg. Therefore, abortion is immoral because personhood begins at conception.[^21]
Ultrasound technology has significantly impacted the modern scientific understanding of pregnancy. It is reported that over seventy-five percent of the women who see an ultrasound image of their child at a pro-life pregnancy center decide against having an abortion.[^22] The former abortion doctor Joseph Randall candidly admitted that he refused to show ultrasound images to the pregnant women in his clinic “because we knew that if they so much as heard the heart beat, they wouldn’t want to have an abortion.”[^23]
Pregnancy begins at the moment of conception when the male sperm and the female ovum unite. The zygote results from fertilization and possesses the four criteria for life: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. The humanness of the zygote is indisputable because the zygote is the product of human parents. All the genetic information (including characteristics such as gender and hair color) that the child will ever have during his entire life is already present in the zygote.[^24] According to biophysicist Francis Crick, the newly fertilized ovum possesses the same quantity of information as fifty complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britanica.[^25] Given this genetic reality, it does not make sense to regard the unborn child as only a potential person.[^26]
The terms zygote, embryo, and fetus refer to stages in a person’s development. It is more accurate to assert, for example, that someone once was a fetus than to argue, as pro-abortionists do, that someone came from a fetus.[^27] Adolescence is also a stage in a person’s development, but who would say that an adult came from an adolescent? Instead, it would be declared that the adult was once an adolescent.
There are four scientific reasons why the unborn should be regarded as fully human. First, at conception, the child possesses his own unique genetic code. Second, “The conceptus is a being who is in the process of becoming.”[^28] That statement differs significantly from thinking of the conceptus as a becoming striving toward being. Third, the conceptus results from the union of its human parents. Finally, there is continuity in the development of the zygote throughout its life into adulthood. The human entity begins at conception and never becomes a different individual.[^29]
Ethically, four conditions are required for an action to be considered murder: “1. A person must be killed. 2. The person must be killed intentionally. 3. The victim must be innocent. 4. An unlawful or sinful motive must be involved in the killing.”[^30] It can reasonably be asserted that “Abortion as commonly practiced today satisfies these criteria.”[^31]
Conclusion
The National Right to Life Committee, a prominent anti-abortion organization, has calculated that 63,459,781 recorded abortions were performed in the United States between 1973 and 2019.[^32] That was an average of over 3,500 abortions per day. In light of that statistic, Gregory Koukl asserts, “The most dangerous place for a baby to be in the land of the free and the home of the brave is resting in her mother’s womb.”[^33]
The case for the humanity and personhood of the unborn child can be made by appealing to appropriate theological, scientific, and ethical considerations. Not only are there no persuasive reasons to distinguish between humanness and personhood, but there are also compelling reasons to affirm that all who possess human life also possess full personhood and should, therefore, be treated as valuable human persons.